Gestalt is All Relative
by Greyella
Summary: "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts." - Aristotle. Emma and Regina inadvertently play with Gestalt. Adding, picking up the missing pieces creates a jigsaw. Swan Queen.
1. Add Up the Unbirthdays

**Author's Note I:** I know, I know. New story while I have others to update? Yes. (No frets, my Lovelies: _Post Hoc_ soon.) But to be fair, this is far overdue.  
This, the first chapter (1 of 3/4) of my belated _belated_ (Un)birthday story for my dear AGG. May all your birthday's be Un, and your endeavors be credited to you.

* * *

_I've built walls,_  
_A fortress deep and mighty_  
_That none may penetrate_  
_I have no need of friendship; friendship causes pain_  
_It's laughter and it's loving I disdain_  
_I am a rock, I am an island_

_- Simon & Garfunkel_

* * *

Day after day. It was always the day after today. She got angry. But the day was in her sight. Day. A winter's day, one deep and dark in December. She was alone. Wintermints of the season crushed in her mouth. Molars chewed angrily on air (a kiss off). But by early light, no sparks were found (unlike in the darks of tents).

She ran.

Mornings lent well to solidarity, to thoughts. So she ran, feet pounding pavement or wood-hidden trails. The day was youthful, a storybook sunrise painting pink. She choked on the pulp of perfect. Storybook. Storybrooke. _Story-fucked_.

_Guess it's got something to do with luck _

And Emma had inclination to haul off and kick a tree (yell inducing, shin bruising, anger juicing). Perfection was overrated, and she was sickened by pretty-please princess duty…and _uncharming_ family antics. She hoped they knew: it would go down on their permanent record.

_I take one, one, one 'cause you left me_

"A very-_fucking_-merry Unbirthday to me…to me." The grumble was crossed between (sing) remnants of incredulity and (song) bail-bond tackle.

Poptart stuffed in mouth, she had absconded from her moth-Sn…  
_(But I waited my whole life for just one…)_

_'Fuck.' _

…Mary Margret's apartment. And the travesty of familial relations, which resided there.

_And two, two, two for my family_

The Cora-situation wasn't helping. Battle plans. 1) The latter ought have eased Snow's 28-year late affections. They hadn't. 2) Neither had the revelation of the former eased Regina's self-induced house arrest. Or wherever the fuck Queenie was holed-up.

_And three, three, three for my heartache_

Still. Emma was criminally good, every Tuesday. As at the "drop-point" (the remains of castle playground), Henry was _exchanged_ between parley mothers. Words however were not. At the least, in an ongoing state, Emma enjoyed under-nose-lying, and keeping such masochistic tidbit under wraps.

_Oh, ma-mama, mama-mo-ma-mum  
Have you kept you eye, your eye on your son?  
I know you've had problems, you're not the only one  
When your sugar left, he left you on the run_

So now. Perpetually a morning-hater, dawn jogs (frickin' dawn) had become Emma's lesser evil. Trees stood, recurring sentries to her war (such passersby to her snarls). They sniffed at purée on ragged air, the sweat behind knees. Emma had refused Mary Margret's Stepford-waffles and the cloying pulp they spewed. Goodness. The saccharine made chewing unbearable. But Poptarts. Poptarts were more beneficially unhealthy. So Poptarts she scarfed. Mary Margret's resulting discontent; the small twitch of that white cheek. It drew smile upon Emma. Better than the cut of a knife. Or a migraine. Finally: something to fracture the idiotic tale. Imperfection. So underrated. Like pulpless orange juice, scarring snow.

_And four, four, four for my headaches_

The fair savior lacked _savoir-faire_. So she ran, and enjoyed stumbles on loose rock or terrain. When her shoelaces untied, she tripped on the urge to feel alive. She redefined herself as Emma. These little mars, scripted her into curved being. Narrow paths bored her straight; rockier roads were preferred. The edge of the forest brushed her toes. It built a mighty fortress, walling the earth. Several times, she rocked onto heels, and back again. It was living, not contemplation of. Pine needles found her skin as she intruded, human into tree-fray. And the scratches bled blood, which was fitting; they did not fall to snow and did not bead onto frost strings.

_And five, five, five for my lonely_

* * *

**Author's Note II:** R & R, my Lovelies.

**Credits & Thanks:**  
_- Alice in Wonderland, _"The Unbirthday Song_"_ – Disney Film (idea originated by _Lewis Carroll_ in Through the Looking Glass)  
_- Helena Bonham Carter_ – quote  
- _Ira Levin_ – The Stepford Wives  
_- Simon and Garfunkel_ – I Am a Rock  
_- Third Eye Blind_ – Semi-Charmed Life  
- _Violent Femmes_ – Add it Up, Kiss Off

**Translator:  
**- _Savoir-faire_ (French):  
Noun phrase. Ability to be adaptable and adroit, knowing what to do in any situation. Most broadly, pertaining to social behavior.


	2. Kiss Off

**Author's Note I:** Part 2/?. For AGG. Have a taste of my headcannon, my Pretties._  
_

* * *

_You can all just kiss off into the air_  
_Behind my back I can see them stare_  
_They'll hurt me bad, but I won't mind_  
_They'll hurt me bad, they do it all the time_

- _Violent Femmes_

* * *

Hiding-spot, behind the pine. Had not been her plan. But alteration was in order, if un-ideal. Especially, as path folded, revealing surprise _appliqué_. Out of place and in the wood: Cora and Rum—er…Gold. Hence, Emma's poky position amongst needles. Despite danger, she scowled at the tiny swords bolstering _en garde_. She cussed steam, as hand gooed into sap. Luckily, foliage was sharp filter and muffled her untimely crass. It reminded knowledge: Henry safe with another danger.

Furthermore, her spy quarries were egocentrically oblivious. You know, lip-padlocked and all.

_Kiss off into the air_

Behind their backs, she stared.

Facetiously, Emma reckoned her new role in life was to walk-in on fairytale activities of the carnal variety. Teeth scraped against tongue as it protruded. As if this would get the bad taste and sights out her mouthing mind. Emma had to stomach her mental wrenching (and curb the ew-interjection, which lips pleaded to release). This…development (of recent origins or not) required reevaluation of all knowledge current. Despite internal sirens, she switched this mind-fuck to back burner. And the blonde attempted to focus on the existing education, woodburning before her.

Gold apparently found sense, and air again.

"Truly Cora," he backhanded his mouth, wiping caressed remnants, "…we crossed that troll bridge long ago."

A loaded sneer.

_Some people say that I'm a bad guy  
They may be right_

"But as I hear it, Mummy dearest isn't crossing _fair_ with her spawn."

_They may be wrong  
Oh ma-mama, mama-mo-ma-mum_

Emma's eyes widened. It just…got…interesting. (Beyond charades of copulating calamity, that is). Gold's interest in Regina never boded…well. For anyone. Despite gravity, the savior [as it (_she_) were] snorted quiet rephrase. Gold's interest in _anyone_ was an elemental trainwreck.

Cora's hands twitched, sparking. Until now, the witch had facaded as docile; a countenance misnomer. Control, and palms fisted, extinguishing ire. And as if she hadn't been fire-balling (or sucking face), this was followed by nonchalant huff and hum (a habit Emma decided was most irritating…and familiar).  
"Rumple, now don't be sore, I more than exceeded your…pedagogical expectations."

Emma quite thought the proprietor's cane spasmed at the ill-encompassing statement. Her own stomach rather churned at Cora's caresses, caricatures in mockery.

Gold raised his eyebrow and gritted teeth.  
"I hardly think stealing my sperm qualifies as_ pedagogical_. Even heartless, deary, I doubt you've lost the art of linguistic definition."

The hiss back was no less revealing:  
"Oh, don't get so distressed. Says the man who switched out dear Snowy's stillborn for the Savior. Why, Mr. Stone, I do hope you're enjoying your glass house."

Emma's surprise heart-pinched out as sneeze. Very loudly and tree-rustling.  
"Fuck."

_The situation gets rough and I start to panic  
It's not enough, it's just a habit  
Hey kid you're sick  
Well, darling, this is it_

She locked emotion…down – flightless birds.

_And six, six, six for my sorrow_

But cover already blown (via insubordinate nostrils), blonde didn't bother to hide expletive. It fell flat on freshly fallen snow, shroud for daybreak. Adversarial magic ears were her coffin nails. Past her housing pine…hurried words scurried into motion and spilled from the ominous duo.

A complement-company: _Gold_ smiles and _Corroborating_ hands.  
Gold gauged, Cora captured.

_Don't shoot, shoot, shoot that thing at me_

Briar stumbles in the pines, as sudden vines held Emma fast, despite thrash. And momentarily she regretted full facial regard of Cora's uppity countenance. Background brain (and frontal lobe) fired. Belated empathy, for the childhood of a supposed enemy.

_You know you've got my sympathy  
Don't shoot, shoot, shoot that thing at me_

Fingers tasted sharpened mint on needles. Involuntary grasps at freedom. Fruitless. However, the pricks Emma found useful, weapons against this new skewed knowledge. On the other hand (both hands), vine cuffs shackled wrists. They delivered further fuel for a stomach to churn, memory curds to char and burn.

Cora smiled as she grew thorns. Sharp as their wielding tongue. They cut the savior.

_Open up your heart and I will tear it_

Shanks in her wrists. Furious stress and blonde felt eerie – a heatless warmth spreading Emma as breadless butter. Fervently, she made a wish of elsewhere (perhaps oblivion).

_And seven, seven for no tomorrow_

Her appall, complete with face scrunching. Emotions chugged, and the body steamed. And then in a rather disinclined display she popped to gone, and left twinkles of white railway.

At the wake, Cora became silent conniption, her face charring trees (and the odd bunny).

But Gold.  
"Interesting…"

He couldn't decide if this development thwarted…or was just a queer kind of solstice gift.

_Did I happen to mention that I'm impressed?_

* * *

**Author's Note II: **R & R, my Dearies. More to come soon.

**Credits & Thanks:**  
_- Simon and Garfunkel_ – I Am a Rock  
_- Third Eye Blind_ – Semi-Charmed Life  
- Violent Femmes – Add it Up, I Swear It (I Can Change), Kiss Off

**Translator:  
**- _Appliqué _(French):  
Literally, "applied" or "thing that has been applied." Most broadly, a small ornament or device applied to another surface.  
- _En garde_ (French):  
Literally, a warning: "On [your] guard." Origins in fencing, a direction to be ready to fence and take the opening position for action.


	3. Them Bones

**Author's Note I: **Part 3/4 for AGG. Though it could stand without a forth, I do think there will be one more chapter of this. With immense love, thank you to both _Another Girl Grasping_ and _beforeyouspeak_ for dialogue fodder and all around ass-kicking me into gear.

* * *

_This is it, the apocalypse_  
_I'm waking up, I feel it in my bones_  
_Enough to make my systems blow_  
_Welcome to the new age, to the new age_

_~ Imagine Dragons_

* * *

At the unidentifiable thwapp (but identifiable bone snap), Regina's knife slipped. Sudden crash distracted. And zucchini missile shot off the counter and dive-bombed to floor. She ignored her thumb's insistent twinge, as her entire focus went frantic, containing only mother-eyes.

_Them bones, them bones_

But Henry was intact, merely mid-snap of pencil and slack-jawed startled. It was only that stupefied stare of scare (not terror), which precluded Regina's subjunctive knife throw into assumed enemy. She followed his gaze, from kitchen table to stair landing. Then she understood his surprise-eyes. But nothing else.

The savior lay sprawled. White tell-tails of magic still collected about her. Food for a later thought.

_Broken down kitchen at the top of the stairs  
Can I mix in with your affairs_

Foyer, kitchen, and stairs _oh-my_ dampened with unidentifiable emotion, heightened and imbued. Perhaps it was the red on white. Carpet that looked too much as snow, seeping moments. And blood. Allegory or not, Regina couldn't dismiss Emma, the fallen and felled. Her feet moved (past their parley) far before her brain did. Regina concluded the boy had far more guts then sense (some might say enough for garters), if so noted by his body's spring, gunning for Emma's side. But bone white, shining under chandelier was game changer. She knew that break, her recollection a sinister song. The tune was sharp…limb twisted. As was Emma.

_Them dry bones  
And eight, eight, I forget what eight was for_

Bone. Gods, she couldn't let him see. Small blessing, but Regina thanked his blocked angle. Queen mouth moved orders:  
"Henry. The study. Now!"

A boyish tilt to his head.  
"Did she just…_apparate_?" He appeared slightly amused…unsurprised. As if never to question, that a first attempt might go clumsy, resulting in collapse.

He didn't dispel the situation, she knew. But those childhood filters were better than good. Even thigh-high in conspiracy theories, he remained as such, a child. And Regina thanked his momentary infatuation with Harry Potter. And she prayed it would preserve him oblivious to Swan's actual state, despite the merit of his inquiry. But the question of Miss Swan's magic would have to wait. Henry, however, would not. Could not. He couldn't see the bones, he just couldn't.

"NOW, Henry."

_[So exigent was his mother's voice that disobedience offered no options to Henry. And for just this once, alarm overruled rebellion; he listened without argument. The boy decided the lingering terror in her tenor scared him more than Emma's sudden appearance. It was heavy steps that brought him to curl on couch, sturdy doors shut behind. He wondered what on earth could possibly scare an evil queen.] _

Footfalls on carpet reassured her focus. Still. If moot in actuality, Regina preferred some semblance of saving innocence (the past year had stripped much). The child called Emma: _Mother_. And as currently, the so-named was of the stuck pig variety. Well…call it Regina's bloody good deed for this decade (i.e. aid and abet the enemy). Regina's resolve was silent.

Emma was not; harmed whispers banged shot put, unidentifiable and pained.

A mayoral shot into motion. No cake found on the walk upstairs (run, don't walk). Regina rather thought the staircase lost its _grand_, with its addition of abuse crumpled on landing. Her magic crept creeps, as did she. Up quickly, each step was no closer to plot. Only further from reality as she knew it: an indestructible savior. But ascent proved this illusion, proved her incredulous…as indestruction could not be defined as fracture. Not the twin bones exposed, the snapped wrists before her.

_Them bones, them bones  
Them dry bones_

She knew those breaks. Royal glance scanned the vista (skewed, strewn, and savior). She found the landing culprit, that bone snap; an ankle in atrocious angle. Ribcage breathed in rattles, and Regina knew several were misplaced, though not in danger of lung puncture. It was a best-case scenario, during the worst of matters; the lesser evil. (The Evil Queen noted this irony, her dubbing it so.) Knowing eyes: this, not result of battle. This, result of cruelty. Her hands were tremors, from the nasty tilt of the world. She knelt, carefully, to knees, uncertain of many things. Certain of the blonde matted upon her carpet. Certain Swan was a forced-dishevelment not of her own making. Nor Regina's.

_Nine, nine, nine for a lost god_

But it was the hoarse pule, which flung an anguished,

"R-regina…"

The whimper hit her boots; toes that lips clung to, if only for finding familiar. Of all things, this was the factor that engendered all priors moot, and rendered Regina beyond civility. And so, humanity struck the Mayoral Mansion, deep in the foundation bones_._

"Miss S-…Emma." Surely such a state, required such a forbidden fruit on her tongue. "Are…are you quite alright?" Apparently, it didn't require savvy.

It bolted her speech asinine. Highness hands still touched air, unclear on destination, or purpose. Where unskirted met ground, the carpet bit her knees until they bent beside her. A grace misplaced in the gravity of these moments. It was with strange deliberation, she scooted and prepped for care. Regina lifted the head, heavy, to her lap…half-cradling the downed savior. She thought the broken thing out, brain shutting out pain.

But slurred-softly, the strained reply came. Words halved, some missing…but no less Emma Swan.  
"…s'long you consi…grievous bod- harm…to b'okay."

Regina snorted, despite the propriety of the situation. Her levity, ginger of sorts, must have cleared the mind.

As blonde mats and blue leveled with her, horror in committed depths.  
"…'ore…more, than we thin' we are. C-co…"

Despite tenacity of whispered tone, Emma's eyes began to flutter…her body succumbing. The bloodied blonde was clear in her terror. Regina excelled at the vague and riddled. One to ponder, and fast. _More, more than we think we are._ The last bit, however, was troubli—

Emma agitated, unable to convey the revelations on mind.

Regina did her best to assuage. She didn't ponder their unquestioned truce…merely her sudden ease with it.  
"Hush."

But Emma went. She left conscious-loosing whispers.  
"No. Now...'thers," she whispered, "…'gina, the d-damn mothers…C-ora…"

Leaving Regina with a conscious raised. As if she hadn't known before, in a hoary suspected deep. Still. Solidity was always jarring. Especially congealed as Cora. Mothers. And Madame Mayor too well understood Emma's disturbance, sans detail. Anomalous, but slight impulse to hum was medulla reflex, albeit squashed. Absently, Regina smoothed a clammy brow (sweat with rust); soothed the distress, her magical anodyne prompting sleep. (T'would not do, to magically set bones without a lucid patient. Healing magic was fickle that way.)

A stasis spell. It lit the stairwell, dusting it violet in soundless ripples. The last lavender trickles dissipated, leaving Queen and sleeping-Savior in the loading silence of things. And Regina was acutely aware; she and Swan had much to discuss upon her waking. Apparently. The expert noted patient: pallor, extent of injuries, strength of spell. She gave them half a candlemark, tops.

The meantime and she attempted at benign thoughts. (However, malignancies prevailed.)  
'_Henry. Their son in the study. Mothers. Her nicked thumb. Rusted shears in the garage, which needed replacing. Apple tree in the yard. Cider, which wouldn't be pressed tonight. Snacktime. Mothers. Miss Swan. Regina. Mothers. Emma. Emma's wrists, spiraled and snapping. Bones. Mothers. Cora. Blood. Running. Running up stairs. Blood. Congealed and smeared on the white landing, probably crusting. Snow. Bones. Regina. Rattled breaths in her lap. Emma. Cora. Emma.'_

She steadied. _Emma_.

_Now I deal in a different story  
It's a revolution, I suppose  
Now I feel it in my bones  
We'll paint them red to fit right in  
Them dry bones_

The sobriety unnerved. It unearthed a nagging awareness: new chasms and fusions. She bemused as alliance shifted, new lines drawn deep in sand. Or carpet rather.

_'Glorious.'  
_Regina surmised, sarcasm her own red-jacket for fear. Because veiled insinuations always boded so _well_ in her realm.

_And ten, ten, ten, ten for everything, everything, everything_

* * *

**Author's Note II: **R&R my dearies.

**Credits & Thanks:  
**- _Imagine Dragons _- Radioactive  
- _James Weldon Johnson_ – Dem Bones or Dry Bones (as inspired by _Ezekiel_ 37:1-14)  
- _J.K. Rowling_ – Harry Potter  
- _Violent Femmes_ – Add it Up, Kiss Off  
- _The Wizard of Oz_, film  
- _Young Guns_ - Bones


End file.
